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This is where you’ll find the latest announcements for our workshops, art camps for kids, the authors presenting at the Manzanita Writers’ Series, as well as other performances in music, magic, and theater.

To see what’s coming up, simply scroll down this page to see all the latest posts. Or, if you are looking for something specific click on a category (from the list on the right hand side of the screen), and you’ll see all the posts relating to that topic

Along the top of the page, you’ll see additional tabs for more information about the Hoffman Center (just pull down the menu at each tab to get the info you want.) Enjoy finding out more about us, and we hope to see you soon.

Anna Keesey will read from her book Little Century at the Hoffman Center at 7pm on Saturday, March 21, 2015.

Written in the tradition of My Antonia and There Will Be Blood, Little Century follows eighteen-year-old orphan Esther Chambers homesteading in the lawless town of Century, Oregon, in 1900, a time of a battle for water and rangeland between sheep and cattle owners.

“Anna Keesey’s debut novel hums with raw energy: its youthful heroine’s, the small town around which the ranches lie, and the new century that’s just unfolding….Exhilarating.”— The Boston Globe

Little Century won the 2013 Janet Heidinger Kafka Prize, awarded each year by the Susan B. Anthony Institute for the best work of fiction by an American woman published in the preceding year. The award calls attention to the work of a promising but less established woman writer. Previous winners include Anne Patchett, Toni Morrison and Ursula Le Guin before they achieved fame.

Anna Keesey is a graduate of Stanford University and the Iowa Writer’s Workshop. Her work has appeared in a number of journals and anthologies, including Best American Short Stories. She is the recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts Creative Writing Fellowship and has held residencies at MacDowell, Bread Loaf, Yaddo, and Provincetown. Keesey teaches English and creative writing at Linfield College in McMinnville, Oregon.

Following Keesey’s reading and Q&A, we’ll have our popular Open Mic where up to nine local writers will read 5 minutes of their original work. The suggested theme for Open Mic is “Frontiers and Pioneers.”

Admission for the evening is $7.

During the day on Saturday, from 1 to 3pm, Keesey will teach a writing workshop on “Writing Before You Were Born: How to Create Lively Historical Fiction.” Keesey will talk about what historical fiction is, share strategies for research, and provide participants some on-the-spot practice in telling a historical story. Held at the Hoffman Center, the workshop is $30. Register and pay here.

Marcia Silver and Gail Young will lead a discussion of Keesey’s book at the Manzanita Library two weeks later on Saturday, April 4 from 2 to 3pm.

Two Dutch girls met at an Irish session in Amsterdam and soon discovered their shared love of harmony singing and telling stories through music. They started to perform the songs they loved best, drawing from the Scottish folk tradition – where Sophie lived for a while – as well as from Irish musical heritage – which Margot knew like the back of her hand, after years of busking with her harp-playing husband.

The snug fit of their voices was not lost on the public and The Lasses have tackled many cafés, concert halls, festivals and churches in the last two years with their enchanting folk repertoire. In 2014, they ventured as far as the West coast of Ireland where they were invited by Luka Bloom. Each Lass plays guitar as well as bodhrán but their voices are instantly recognizable: Margot is the husky alto and Sophie the emotive soprano. This year, they hope to enthrall an audience even further west than Ireland: you!

This spring tour will see the release of The Lasses’ second album, Daughters, containing a selection of songs about perky girls who might have done better if they had listened to their parents. On this album, Sophie and Margot perform some songs that are more traditional to the United States, as well as stories from Ireland, Scotland and England. The girls pick their songs by gut feeling – if the song feels like home, if a story rings true in their own heart, there really is no other choice but to start singing it.

With their unique harmony singing and their charming style, their performance should not be missed. So come to one of their shows in and around Oregon and find out what daughters do with well-meant advice!

The lovely Kathryn Claire (kathrynclairemusic.com) will be performing with The Lasses. Kathryn’s unique blend of original, Celtic and Americana music makes for a captivating and energetic live performance. Her fiddle-playing exhibits a technical grace which is matched only by her truly captivating voice and and dynamic guitar work, and she possesses the rare ability to move seamlessly across genres.

The Friday, March 13th concert starts at 7:30 pm and is all ages. Admission is $10. Tickets to the event are not pre-sold.

Manzanita Writers’ Series kicks off crowdfunding campaign to raise funds to print and launch the 4th Edition of the North Coast Squid, a Journal for Local Writing..

The fourth North Coast Squid literary magazine, which showcases work of writers and artists who live on the north Oregon coast or have a strong connection to the area, will be published in April.

The crowdfunding campaign, through Indiegogo, is just one part of the overall budget. The rest of the expenses are covered through in-kind donations of submission management, design time, editing, and with Squid sales.

Donation amounts range from $25 to $500. In thanks for each donation, a perk is available.

Perks vary, from a copy of the Squid with your name on the donor page, a signed print of the cover image, to a literary agent review of your book proposal. You can even have a character named for you in Phillip Margolin’s next novel.

The campaign funding goal is $3000, with a stretch goal of $5000. That would allow a few pages of color on the inside as well as the cover of the Squid, to showcase great local art that is included with the writing. Any amount raised past the goal will go to the next Squid.

Liz Cole will again perform readings at the Hoffman Center on Thursday, March 12 at 7p.m. This time Liz has chosen the theme of “Turning Points”. She will share stories and poems about those surprising events that change our lives forever, whether or not we recognize it at the time. As always, the material will be rich in both humor and poignancy. Audience members can look forward to an evening of beautiful readings followed by thoughtful conversation.

The Hoffman Center has presented Liz Cole’s Story Time for Grown Ups twice before to enthusiastic audiences.

Liz Cole has had a long acting career on the professional stage, and has also made TV guest-star appearances on Seinfeld, ER, Star Trek, The Practice, Judging Amy, Las Vegas, and many others.

She originated the leading role in Margaret Edson’s Pulitzer Prize-winning drama Wit in 1995, for which she received the L.A. Drama Critics’ Circle Award for Outstanding Performance. She also tours with “The Wisdom of Wit,” her solo version of the play.

Liz has performed locally for various benefit events (Lower Nehalem Land Trust, Rinehart Clinic, Nehalem Valley Historical Society). She appeared in the original solo play Lost Pioneer, which she developed with Mark Beach and Portland playwright Ellen West. The play, presented seven times in this area, is based on the lives of three women who homesteaded in Tillamook County in the 1890s, and blends biographical data with historical imagination.

To find out more about Liz Cole’s career and watch a demo reel of selected TV appearances go to megancole.net.

There is a suggested donation of $10 and all proceeds will go to support the Hoffman Center’s programs. Doors open at 6:30 p.m. Come early, seating is limited. Refreshments will be served.

Learn how to make your own artist’s sketchbook in a workshop on Saturday, March 14, from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Start the day coloring the watercolor paper for the covers of this multiple signature journal/sketchbook. The pages are Arches Text Wove, a translucent paper that is strong enough to take wet media put is also excellent for drawing. The Longstitch technique is taught, the instructions are bound into the trial version of this bookform. Then the actual sketchbook is completed with the exposed longstitch, added beads and the morning’s painting! The Journal is your own unique design, ready for sketch, writing, or drawing….

Workshop leader, Eliza Holliday, creates lettering, design and illustration for both U.S. and international clients (www.letterist.com). In addition, she teaches calligraphy and book arts in many venues, including retreats, conferences, guilds and community colleges, and libraries as well as through on-line lessons. Eliza’s current artwork involves painted books and calligraphic sculpture with lettering and collage. Her studies in art and psychology are employed in her volunteer work using art-as-therapy at Mayo Clinic Jacksonville and with the Guardian Ad Litem Program. She has authored “Brush Lettering” “The Lively Brush” and Walter Foster’s “Kid’s Calligraphy” Workbook.

Lauren Kessler will teach a writing workshop on Character Development from 10 to 3pm on Saturday, February 21, 2015 at the Hoffman Center in Manzanita.

“Characters propel plot. Characters make us care. How do you create living, breathing, believable — and memorable — characters? This workshop, for both fiction and nonfiction writers, explores the four main ways writers can create three-dimensional characters.”

Kessler is a national speaker and workshop leader and director of the graduate program in multimedia narrative journalism at the University of Oregon.

She is author of Counterclockwise; My Teenage Werewolf: A Mother, A Daughter, A Journey Through the Thicket of Adolescence; Pacific Northwest Book Award winner Dancing with Rose (published in paperback as Finding Life in the Land of Alzheimer’s), the Washington Post bestseller Clever Girl and Los Angeles Times bestseller The Happy Bottom Riding Club. Kessler is author of Oregon Book Award winner Stubborn Twig, which was chosen as the book for all Oregon to read in honor of the state’s 2009 sesquicentennial.

Kessler has articles published in publications nationwide including The New York Times Magazine, O magazine, Utne Reader and many more.

On Saturday evening at 7pm she will kick off the Manzanita Writers’ Series 2015 programs by reading from her book Counterclockwise: My Year of Hypnosis, Hormones, Dark Chocolate and Other Adventures in the World of Anti-Aging.

The Hoffman Center Clay Studio in Manzanita will present another Wheel Throwing workshop Friday March 27, 2015, from 10 a.m to 1 p.m. J S Hauer will lead the class.

This workshop will cover basic clay art and throwing principles and the studio’s throwing equipment along with plenty of hands-on practice time.

The cost is $30 which includes three pounds of clay and three hours of instruction, plus use of all tools needed. The fee also includes kiln firing and glazing. The cost for follow-up work time at the studio is $2 per hour.

Space is limited, so sign up by delivering payment to the Studio, located at the corner of Laneda and Division Streets in Manzanita. Studio hours are Tuesdays and Thursdays from 10 – 4; Saturdays 10 – 2.

The Hoffman Center’s Manzanita Film Series will screen the 2008 feature-length documentary “Politics of Sand” Friday, Feb. 27 at 7:30 p.m. Admission will be $5.

The in-depth history of Oregon’s beaches focuses on the political ebb and flow of efforts to keep the coast accessible to the public. The fight, which began with Governor Oswald West’s 1913 landmark legislation succeeded, but not without substantial effort.

The documentary covers nearly 150 years of history through archival footage, photographs, and interviews, and details the legislative actions taken by Governors Oswald West and Tom McCall. It was written and edited by Matt Love.

The Hoffman Center Clay Studio in Manzanita will present another Introduction to Ceramics workshop Friday, April 17, 2015, from 1 to 4 p.m. Kathleen Ryan will lead the class.

This workshop will cover basic clay art principles, including slab building, how to shape and join clay, and create textures. Introduction to the the studio’s equipment will be included and there will be plenty of hands-on practice time.

The cost is $30 which includes three pounds of clay and three hours of instruction, plus use of all tools needed. The fee also includes glazes and kiln firing of your work. The cost for follow-up work time at the studio is only $2 per hour.